Emmett was born January 27, 1915, Rutherglen, Ontario and died March 24, 1990. He was the 2nd youngest son of Adoniram and Alice Smith.
In the summer, Uncle Emmett helped Dad in running the farm as much as he could. He’d often drive over his tractor to pull the plow or the seeder or the rake. While using the bailor, Dad and Uncle Emmett would take turns either driving the tractor or pulling the bails off the bailor and stacking them on the wagon.
Uncle Emmett lived in the original log home built in the late 1800’s by my Grandparents, Richard and Rachel Pennell, when they immigrated to Ontario from England. The house still had a lot of their furniture that they ordered from the Eaton’s catalogue. The front door was old and thick and covered with layer and layer of paint. The floor was soft with age.
He had a big round face, a giant sun-shiny smile and rosy cheeks all year round. He was a bachelor who lived alone. He drank too much which meant he had lots of “friends”. But we did our best to have Uncle Emmett over to visit often, and I was always happy to see him.
He was generous to a flaw. I remember bouncing up and down in front of him asking if he had anything in his pocket for me. Those “anythings” were 50 cent pieces or silver dollars or a roll of Lifesavers.
Under its brick-façade covering, Uncle Emmett’s house was made out of logs built by my Great- Grandparents, Richard and Rachel Pennell when they moved to the area in the late 1800’s from Horton Township, Ontario. The side entrance door was covered with so many layers of thick oil-based paint, you could smell it on a sweltering day. Like all farm houses, in the winter there was a fire burning in the wood stove, making the house cozy and warm, the heat emphasizing the odor of solid wood furnishing that had been handed down from my great-grandparents to my grandparents to my uncle. In fact, the “secretary’s desk” that I now have was from that house, and still has a tag on the back from Eaton’s addressed to my grandmother and still has the smell of that log house.
In the heat of the summer, Dad and Uncle Emmett would come in for lunch from working out in the fields, their skin glistening with perspiration. I can still smell the essence of soap, fresh cut hay and sweat permeating through the country kitchen.
In the afternoons during harvest time, Mom would fill a large white and blue Thermos with ice-water and Wayne and I would carry it to the field. I remember it was very heavy so more often than not, Wayne would carry it, but I can remember the sound of the ice cubes knocking against each other inside the large-mouthed container, while the cold outside condensation dripped down my bare legs.
When we got close to the tractor, baler and wagon, Uncle Emmett would shout for Dad to stop so they could have a cold drink. I felt important and proud that I was bringing something so valuable to them that they’d stop their work. He’d pour the icey water into the wide screw top lid and drink from it. Then with a loud “Ahhhhh!” and a smile as big as the sun, he’d say, “That’s just what I needed.” His sweat formed rivulets, dribbling down the sides of his face. And, just like my Dad, he dressed to give him the perfect farmer’s tan – a short sleeved cotton shirt opened in the “V” at the neck.
Uncle Emmett was a kind, sweet, gentle soul who was very funny – no one could tell a joke like Uncle Emmett. He played the fiddle and loved step-dancing. If there was a special occasion, like Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter, Uncle Emmett was always at the table with us – alone. He told the best stories and had the biggest laugh, the biggest belches, and could cuss the air blue when the tractor broke down.
I was told a story about a time when Uncle Emmett drove to Ottawa to propose to a women and arrived so inebriated, that she turned him down and he never saw her again. Much later in his life, he dated a women by the name of Leona. She was lovely and he tried to stay sober for her, but it was too hard and soon there was no more Leona.
When my Dad passed away in 1988, Uncle Emmett admitted that he would have been nothing if not for my Dad. And that’s when I found out other stories about times when my Dad had to drive to Bonfield looking for Uncle Emmett to help with the farm chores on his farm or our farm and then finding him in a “beer parlour” totally intoxicated. I found out this happened a lot.
When my Dad and Mom decided to sell our farm in 1968 and move to Porcupine, Uncle Emmett went into a rage and accused my Mom of pulling Dad off the family farm. Now I know his rage was because he would be left to look after himself and his own farm and he’d be REALLY alone. We were his family.
Wayne went back for a few summers, living, working and helping Uncle Emmett, but soon, he too, sold off most of his farm. He bought and lived in a mobile trailer he’d parked beside the old log “heritage” house that had become unsafe for occupancy. We visited him many times in his “new” home although I’m not sure if he was ever sober.
He struggled with modern and changing technology, yet, his siblings remember him as having a photographic memory. He could read a poem once and recite it in class and he was a self-taught fiddle player.
When we buried my Dad at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Uncle Emmett saw the empty plot beside my Dad’s and vowed to buy it so that “some old drunk” wouldn’t be lying next to Dad. In 1990, when Uncle Emmett passed away from cirrhosis of the liver, he was buried in that plot.
Its been over 30 years since Uncle Emmett passed away. Older Rutherglen residents still talk about him, laugh about him, reminisce about him. Everyone from the area knew him and have stories to tell and re-tell about him. This made me realize that he’d become a Rutherglen legend, folk lore almost, because of his disease rather than in spite of it. And it will take the passing of three generations before he will become just a Rutherglen farmer who was the grandson of Ontario pioneers.
When I think about Uncle Emmett, I miss him, miss his smiles, miss his hardy laughs, miss his ferocious belches.
by Wendy V. Smith (January 2011) (revised November 2022)